serfty, isn't that open jaw covered by this rule: -

F. Travel may originate at any point for which fares are published and must terminate at the same point, except that origin-destination surface segments are permitted as follows:
(a) within country of origin
(b) between USA and Canada

- so you're saying that although starting at YVR and ending at JFK would be permitted, the mileage must still be included? Is that a change or did I get lucky before? I know I've done DCIR22s before where I started in one place in the U.S. and ended somewhere else in the U.S., simply because there wasn't enough mileage to get back to where I started. For example, you can't do TPA-DFW-NRT-MEL-LAX-DFW-TPA as it's 22,501 miles, so you drop the last leg (which is 929 miles and therefore gets you under the limit). We've done that a couple of times but maybe the rules have changed or we just got lucky.

I can understand if you did TPA-DFW-NRT // HKG-MEL-LAX etc. that you'd have to include the NRT-HKG mileage in the calculation but once you're back in the U.S., doesn't the above rule kick in?